posted October 07, 2015 05:05 PM            

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I find it amazing how the "Ancient Aliens" is now saying that Aliens are most likely robots, even Osiris and Isis were robots....potentially, they say!?

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That is only one theory and not the general one.
Interesting but I don`t put much stock in the robot theory as I am more inclined to believe we carry some of their dna and we are not robotic.

posted October 08, 2015 03:47 PM            

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Originally posted by Randall:
Wouldn't there be good aliens also?

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posted October 08, 2015 03:58 PM            

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Originally posted by juniperb:
That is only one theory and not the general one.
Interesting but I don`t put much stock in the robot theory as I am more inclined to believe we carry some of their dna and we are not robotic.

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posted October 10, 2015 01:31 AM            

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Originally posted by juniperb:
Gabby, I saw the program and it hit me hard as well. I believe in a higher power and that didn`t mesh with my Faith or most peoples belief system either.

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posted October 10, 2015 02:20 PM            

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Originally posted by Randall:
Aw, I missed it.

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posted October 10, 2015 02:21 PM            

~ not even an opinion, just my vague thoughts...

posted October 11, 2015 02:14 AM            

Still, my impression is that "it's just a theory" and it's meant to intrigue rather than scare. Having watched History Channel before (they really need to change the name of it...), I presume they have different ideas they explore, not just one. If you interact with enough UFOlogists (and conspiracy theorists and such) then it's guaranteed that sooner or later you're going to run into the hot debates out there (many of them accusing everyone else of being willful disinfo).

It makes me laugh that one of the guys on that program looks (with his somewhat spiky hair) like he should instead be playing a role in the series Babylon 5 (not that it discredits him, it just makes me laugh).

As for them being robots, I bet the creators of Transformers wished they thought of that! That's clever, but if used to scare people then it's not likely to work as not everyone shares our fears of "Frankenstein" (which is what fears of AI and self-thinking robots are, a fear of "playing God so that doom comes about as such hubris must be punished"). An example of a difference is Japan (and who take part in the UN):

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/421187/why-japanese-love-robots-and-american s-fear-them/

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The affection of a certain island nation for all things robotic – from hundred foot tall warfighting mecha to infantile therapy robots – is well known. It contrasts sharply with the equally entrenched Western fear of automatons, beginning with the very invention of the term “robot,” which was coined in a Czech play that debuted in 1921 in which, naturally, the robots eventually rise up and kill their human masters.

How could two cultures come to such fundamentally divergent conclusions about the status and future of the semi-autonomous helpmates whose increasing presence in our lives seems pre-ordained by nearly every sci-fi vision of the future?

Heather Knight, founder of the world’s first (non-industrial) robot census, has made the study of robot / human interaction her life’s work. She posits that the difference between Japanese and American attitudes toward robots is rooted in something much older than even the idea of robots: religion. “In Japan… they’re culturally open to robots, on account of animism. They don’t make a distinction between inanimate objects and humans.”

Animism is a component of the Shinto faith, the religion that preceded the introduction of Buddhism to Japan and remains an influential part of the country’s culture. Animism is the notion that all objects have a spirit - even man-made objects.

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In contrast:

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In order to understand fully religion’s influence on the West’s attitude toward robotics, we also must remember that Judeo-Christian monotheism also adheres to the doctrine that only God can give life, a popular interpretation of Genesis in which there is only God in the beginning and all living things are His creations. Exodus also decrees that idolatry is a sin. Thus, any human who breathes life into an inanimate object is assuming the role of God and thereby becoming a false idol. Such a blasphemer deserves punishment, and in the conventions of science fiction, this usually comes in the form of betrayal by the robots. From the 1920 work R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech playwright Karel Čapek - who is credited with coining the term “robot” – through The Terminator movies to Battlestar Galactica, such human vanity is constantly met by rebellion by its creation.

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Conclusion:

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Given that Japanese culture predisposes its members to look at robots as helpmates and equals imbued with something akin to the Western conception of a soul, while Americans view robots as dangerous and willful constructs who will eventually bring about the death of their makers, it should hardly surprise us that one nation favors their use in war while the other imagines them as benevolent companions suitable for assisting a rapidly aging and increasingly dependent population.

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Btw, that might also help explain why trends as vocaloids (computer generated voices and songs, and in Japan at least accompanied by holograms) have taken off in Japan. Like so:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O17f3lB7BFY

I've heard of at least one Japanese politician who tried to get Miku just shown to endorse him and his party but the company didn't want to go there, apparently believing associating with politics (or at least politicians) would hurt Miku's image as much as help the politician's. Seems vocaloids inspire more trust than politicians!

And that aside, there are plenty of shows and movies that humans are monsters (such as Avatar), and also that robots aren't so bad as in Humans. Even the last BSG had cylons (bots and androids) finding their "humanity" even as plenty of humans were losing "theirs." That's quite a change from the original where cylons were simply evil while in the newer series there were many shades of grey and it was unclear which side was worse, and I could see why the cylons thought they had to exterminate humanity (at first, but many cylons came to question that, just as many humans came to question the war against the cylons, and damn, some of those intense dramatic scenes...plenty of good, bad, evil, and regrettably understandable on both sides!).

So if "the government" wants to condition us to hate aliens, then they've gotten really bad at getting us to hate, whereas they used to be quite good at it (check the old WW2 propaganda, and that includes the US against Nazis and Japanese that was just as absurd and intent on undermining critical thought no matter how villainous the enemies portrayed may have actually been--the point isn't the veracity, but the ability of the government to manipulate the masses through media). This includes a ban of independent film makers against showing the assigned chosen enemies in even a mildly positive light or allies in a negative light (IIRC, a movie of the American Revolution of Americans fighting the British drew government heat for showing the British as the enemy while WW2 was going on) lest they come under government scrutiny (even MAD Magazine used to be harassed by the FBI when it first came out).